Stephen tried to remain calm and rational. He believed that the tragedy surrounding Magneto was largely the consequence of his past mistakes. Besides, the police who came to apprehend him wouldn't actually hurt an innocent little girl.
But before he could even finish his sentence, the video took a sudden and horrifying turn.
Accompanied by little Nina's cries, a flock of birds suddenly surged toward the police, as if guided by some invisible force.
The officers quickly realized that Nina might also be a mutant—after all, her father was the infamous Magneto.
So they shouted at Erik, ordering him to make his daughter stop.
It was clear Nina had only just awakened her powers. Much like Erik himself, who had unintentionally unleashed his abilities when he was violently separated from his parents as a child, Nina's powers were triggered under extreme emotional stress.
The girl, unfamiliar with her newfound abilities, instinctively didn't want to be separated from her father. As a result, the birds she had summoned flapped their wings and dove toward the officers in a frenzied swarm.
To be fair, the birds weren't dangerous enough to cause real harm. At most, they created chaos and heightened the tension of an already volatile situation.
Nina's mother tried to calm her and urged her to stop using her powers—but just then, one of the police officers, distracted by the swarm, accidentally discharged an arrow from his bow.
Thunk!
At such close range, the arrow had deadly force. It pierced straight through Nina's frail little body—then continued on, striking her mother square in the chest.
"No!"
The sudden tragedy shattered Erik in an instant. He snapped the ropes binding his hands and rushed forward to catch his wife and daughter in his arms.
Once hailed as a god-like figure, the all-powerful Magneto was now nothing more than a broken husband and father, helplessly cradling the lifeless bodies of the people he loved most.
"No... please... don't..." The iron-hearted Erik was no longer the cold, unyielding man he once was. He sobbed uncontrollably, clinging to his wife and daughter, his voice torn with anguish: "Don't take them away from me… please don't take them…"
Outside the video, Erik slowly raised his head and shut his eyes. He couldn't bear to watch anymore. His fists clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, but he didn't even feel it.
His mind was consumed by a single, burning thought—hatred. A desire to leap into the screen and slaughter everyone responsible.
Charles had watched the entire video in silence, rubbing his forehead again and again. Several times he tried to say something, to comfort Erik—but each time, the words died in his throat.
In the end, it was Logan who broke the silence. "I know what that kind of pain feels like. Like a piece of your soul's been ripped out… makes your whole life feel broken." His voice grew softer with every word. He scratched his messy hair, and the dog-like ears atop his head twitched slightly. Logan didn't get angry—he just looked like a man who really needed a cigar.
Erik took a deep breath and turned to look at Charles. "Did you see that, Charles? I believed all the bullshit you said—and this is how it ends!"
Charles sighed deeply. He finally spoke. "It was a chain of terrible accidents that led to this tragedy. Erik… I'm so sorry. But the good news is—we still have a chance to change things. Don't we?"
"Hmph." Erik let out a bitter laugh, his bloodshot eyes blazing with fury. "I won't believe a word you say ever again. Never!"
Back in the video, the grief-stricken Erik finally snapped. He turned his mother's old necklace into a weapon—much like Yondu's whistling arrow—and sent it weaving through the crowd of police officers, cutting them down one by one.
In the blink of an eye, all the officers lay dead in pools of blood.
Strangely, Erik's cold and brutal revenge didn't stir much outrage among those watching.
It was all too easy for them to put themselves in his shoes—as a husband, as a father. Anyone would break down watching their wife and daughter die in their arms… and all of it happened simply because he had tried to help someone.
The more they thought about it, the more their blood boiled.
Of course, some remained clear-headed. They pointed out that the root cause of this tragedy was still Erik himself. If he hadn't so publicly declared war on humanity at the White House, he wouldn't have ended up a globally wanted criminal. Actions have consequences.
But if you trace it back even further, it all came down to race. And in the end, people could only sigh and say: Magneto… really was a tragic man.
The video offered no glimpse of what happened to him afterward.
Instead, the scene jumped forward—forty or fifty years into the future.
Back when Logan had traveled through time, Charles had persuaded Raven to spare Trask's life. With Magneto's unexpected "assistance," they managed to change history. The Sentinel project was shelved, and the dark future where mutants were hunted to extinction by Sentinels was seemingly avoided.
But humanity never gave up on its obsession with mutant research. Without Trask Industries, other labs took their place. Without the dwarf scientist Trask, others rose to take the lead—like Zander Rice.
In the original timeline before Logan's time travel, Trask's Sentinels wiped out the mutants. But in the altered timeline, it was Zander Rice who took up the mantle of genocide.
And according to Rice, what he did to the mutants wasn't "slaughter"—but mercy.
He developed a more advanced serum that suppressed mutant genes, and he secretly introduced it into drinking water, grains, and food supplies. As a result, after 2004, not a single naturally-born mutant appeared anywhere in the world.
In other words, while Logan's intervention stopped the Sentinel apocalypse of 2023, it ironically led to an even earlier extinction of mutantkind.
At least the Sentinels took until 2023 to finish the job. Zander Rice managed to wipe out the mutants by 2004.
And he did it in secret—without any open conflict or war between humans and mutants.
As long as the mutants born before 2004 gradually died out, the entire mutant race would fade into history… or worse—into lab specimens.
Watching this fast-forwarded montage, Erik burst out laughing. "Hahaha! Charles, look at this! This is the future you believed in, the future you promised!"
His laughter suddenly stopped. He glared at Charles, eyes blazing with hatred. "Answer me, Charles. Is this the future you wanted?!"
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